ipS THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



have given this brief sketch, is immense in the number of species which 

 compose it ; and these have a wide range of size, some being so small 

 as to be only discernible by the microscope, while some are many 

 feet in length. The hugest of them all is a spider-like creature, the 

 Macrocheira, or long-armed crab of Japan. The cabinet of Rut- 

 gers College, New Jersey, contains one of them. It is the Macro- 

 cheira Camperi, We made an actual measure of it, and found that, 

 with its long limbs extended, it had a length of eleven feet six inches. 

 This specimen is probably the largest known. 



After a while, a crab ceases to grow. Of course, then all enlarge- 

 ment stops, and. it is no longer necessary for it to get new clothes, as 

 the old ones are large enough. It is liable now to become the victim 

 of the strangest sort of parasitism. In the British Museum is an old 

 crab of the edible species, with some half-dozen oysters of large size 

 growing on its back, which load, ever increasing, the old crab was 

 doomed to carry to the end of its days. A singular piece of imposi- 

 tion — and enough to make crabbed the disposition of the most amiable. 

 Another specimen preserved is that of a hairy crab, whose habit 

 seems to have been to encourage the presence of sponges. And it got 

 " sponged on " with a vengeance, seeing that it is not larger than a 

 walnut, and yet is saddled with a sponge as big as a man's fist. 



SEX m MmD AXD i:n' educatio:n'. 



By HENEY MAUDSLEY, M. D. 



THOSE who view without prejudice, or with some sympathy, the 

 movements for improving the higher education of women, and for 

 throwing open to them fields of activity from which they are now 

 excluded, have a hard matter of it sometimes to prevent a feeling 

 of reaction being aroused in their minds by the arguments of tlie 

 most eager of those who advocate the reform. Carried away by their 

 zeal into an enthusiasm which borders on or reaches fanaticism, they 

 seem positively to ignore the fact that there are significant differences 

 between the sexes, arguing in effect as if it were nothing more than 

 an afi^air of clothes, and to be resolved, in their indignation at wom- 

 an's wrongs, to refuse her the simple rights of her sex. They would 

 do better in the end if they would begin by realizing the fact that 

 the male organization is one, and the female organization another, and 

 that, let come what may in the way of assimilation of female and 

 male education and labor, it will not be possible to transform a woman 

 into a man. To the end of the chapter she will retain her special 

 functions, and must have a special sphere of development and activity 

 determined by the performance of those functions. 



